The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Today, digital maps of geographic areas are commonly displayed on computing devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones via map applications, web browsers, etc. Many map applications provide the user with the ability to select the type of map information or features for viewing as well as to adjust the display of the digital map. For example, the user may select among several scales and map viewing modes, such as a basic map mode that presents a traditional road-map view, a satellite mode, a street-level mode, or a three dimensional (3D) view.
Some applications may generate 3D mesh data that describes the geometry of objects in a 3D space (e.g., vertices, edges), textures of surfaces, etc. In general, 3D mesh data may define 3D models of objects (such as buildings) at multiple levels of detail, so that an application can display a relatively coarse 3D model of an object in one view and a relatively detailed 3D model of the same object in another view.
Although providing 3D images can provide a significantly enhanced view of an area, the added requirements for data transmission speed and processing power can be problematic when attempting to provide a satisfying and seamless user experience. In some applications, particularly applications running on mobile devices, network connection or latency issues may create a situation where images must be drawn with incomplete data. For example, when a certain level of detail (LOD) is requested, but some or all of the required data for that LOD is not available, an image may be drawn or rendered using data intended for a different, coarser, level of detail. This often results in severe artifacts, or distortions of the requested 3D image, including easily noticeable distortions caused by hard edges of low-detail portions of a mesh.